The difference 12 square feet can make

We started our first big home improvement adventure last night. The hall closet is no more. I brushed my teeth and blow dried my hair and put my makeup on this morning and didn't bump my elbow once. It was great.

So here are some pictures of the bathroom up until 7:00 last night.



As you can see, the sink is tiny and not as deep as the wall on the right side of it. The other side of that wall is the hall closet.

And this is what it looks like now.



It will probably look like this for a few months until we fix the roof. That will be at least $1,000 to buy supplies and do it ourselves. And by "ourselves" I mean, Ryan and his buddies will fix the roof, I will hand them tools from the ground and go get beer and pizza and maybe make a cake or some other dessert (the strawberry shortcake with berries masserated in Vodka went over well last time). The roof has to be done before winter and we're planning on the bathroom costing another $1,000, so we'll have to save up for a while before we can buy the new vanity and fixtures.

There was only one casualty in the process (besides of course the closet). Here I am doing the first bit of demolition. I got to do the first wail on the wall. But in that first hit, becuase the handle on the hammer was so short, my knuckles hit the wall and my ring got smashed between the handle and the wall.
Now it looks like this:

Finally some freakin' pictures

As soon as I got home on Friday I headed straight for the box I thought the camera cords would be in. EUREKA!!! I packed them in around my computer monitor at the last minute... I probably chose that box so I would remember where they were and be able to find them quickly. Isn't that always the way it goes.

So, the sewing room is assembled as far as the furniture goes. All the stuff that gets stored in or on the furniture is not so organized yet. I am getting an itch to get in there and get it done enough so I can sew. I think it's been at least 2 months since I have sat at the machine for longer than 20 minutes. And the button I sewed back onto my pants on Sunday doesn't count.

This is my sewing table and machine. I have the table set up so that I am facing the doorway when I sew. I don't like to have my back to the door when I'm sewing, especially because my machine is so loud that I wouldn't hear anyone come in the room. And, because of the hilarious habit Ryan has of sneaking up on me and saying BOO!


This is an old ugly hand-me-down dresser that I am not at all attached to, but it serves it's purpose. My dad built a little table top and I use it as an ironing surface and storage.


Here is a shelf that I'm going to store all my calico and hand dyes on. This spot in the room gets no direct sunlight, so it should be perfect to just leave everything folded and on the shelves. My design wall is there to the right. It doesn't get much direct sunlight either.


And last night I set up my little loom area. The sewing room isn't big enough to keep the loom in, so I set it up just outside the sewing room in the basement living area. That bench is FULL of all my coned yarn. When Ryan picked it up at my apartment to take it out to the moving truck I told him, it's not heavy, it's just full of yarn... The groan he made when he picked it up said otherwise.


On the other side of the wall behind the loom in that picture is about a 10 by 10 storage room that also has the furnace in it. There is no outlet on the wall in the living area of the basement, so I had to plug in that silver lamp around the corner in the storage room. The previous owners had their carbon monoxide detector plugged into that outlet, but there was room for one more thing, so I plugged in the lamp and turned it on. Nothing. Made sure the light bulb was still good and screwed in all the way, tried again, nothing. Went into the storage room and turned on the light switch and the silver lamp came on... Did you catch that? That stroke of genius? The previous owners plugged their carbon monoxide detector into an outlet that only works when the light switch is turned on. GENIUS.

Shannon and my parents came over on Friday for a weenie roast around our fire pit. It was our first party-type thing at our new house and all we did was come up with the idea. Mom brought the dogs, buns, beer and even some cooking tools. All we supplied was a little bit of gasoline to get a fire going... Which at over $3/gallon is nothing to huff at. haha. We tried to get my dad to drink a beer, but he wouldn't. We thought maybe if his only choices were beer or water, surely he'd choose beer. He ended up walking to the gas station around the corner to get a pop.

Here is Ryan and I sitting at the fire. Shannon took about four dumb pictures of us with fake smiles. I knew in order for a picture to turn out with us looking like we were actually having fun she'd have to do something funny. She did. She was wearing a skirt and sitting on a blanket on the other side of the fire from us. I yelled out a specific request, just before she took the picture, for her to do something very unlady-like... she did.


and here is one of Shannon and Ryan cooking their weenies. (They really were having fun, even though they both look bored out of their minds.)


It was a fun time and I think we're going to do it again soon.

Lost

I had 10 extra minutes this morning before I had to leave for work, so I went downstairs with my camera to take some pictures of my roughly assembled sewing room in the new house. Then I remembered that I haven't taken any pictures yet not because I didn't have time, but because I don't know where the cord is to get the pictures from the camera to the computer. It's in a box labeled "computer stuff" and it is somewhere in the house. I haven't found the box yet. I am sure I put all the cords for my camera and my iPod all in the same box and then wrote on it, "camera cord" or something obvious. Because I knew I would want that before we set the computer up. I looked in ALL of my boxes in the sewing room, and the basement where all of the still packed boxes have accumulated. So of course, my 10 extra minutes turned into 15 minutes of me looking through boxes that I had already checked, then remembering I still had to put on my shoes and gather all my work stuff before I could leave. 20 minutes later I was on the road and stuck behind a gas guzzler that couldn't decide if he should do 5 under or 5 over the speed limit. If it isn't a soccer mom on the phone, it's a gravel truck... every single morning. For the two weeks I have been commuting to work so far I have been late. Why does it take 35 minutes to get TO work, but only 25 to get home, when I take the exact same roads?!

Shannon is in town this weekend and she is coming over tonight to see the new house. We're going to have a fire in the fire pit and cook hot dogs and s'mores. Ryan and I had our first fire in the pit earlier in the week and if you had been there you would have laughed so hard at us city kids having to start a fire with gasoline. It took so long to get the fire going and actually get the LOGS to start burning instead of the brush and newspaper underneath. And then the first dose of gasoline burned off and we had to put more on it. By the time it was a good fire we were bored with it and wanted to go inside. I think we figured out some better techniques though and it should be easier this time around.

Pictures on Monday. That is the goal. I think I just thought of where they are... I remember having some extra space in the box I put the computer monitor in... I think that's it.

I had a little time to knit last night. I am done with the heel flap on the brown/purple sock. It looks the same as the first one, you can see it here. I am anxious to get this pair done because it is boring the hell out of me. I want to start a pair of trekking socks. I got a brand new ball of Trekking in a certain boring colorway for a certain big-footed man that will get his first pair of hand knit socks for Xmas this year. I also got a set of shorter bamboo size 1 dpns that I am anxious to try out. It has taken everything in me to not start these socks without finishing the brown/purple ones.
Has anyone out there ever knit man-socks for someone with wider than average feet? I'm wondering if I should cast on more or maybe do some increases around the ball area of the foot. And I'm thinking that if I do a 2 by 2 riibbing all the way down to the toe it will be more snug and stretchy.

Peachy Keen

Whoa, I knew it had been a long time since I posted, but I didn't realize HOW long until I went back to view my last post. (Surprise, I don't re-read my own blog after it is posted!) My excuse (this time) is that I didn't think all the stuff going on right now would be interesting to a whole lot of people that come here looking for Yarn Porn, quilts and other fibery goodness. Not much of that has been going on, unless you consider doing laundry "fibery goodness".

We just love our new house and are both so happy. We have melded our lives together perfectly. Yes it has only been two weeks, but we have been spending more time together than we EVER have, we've been making big decisions, we've been dealing with money, and still no fighting, arguing or agreeing to disagree. It seems like people are standing back, watching and waiting for some kind of shit to hit the fan. People at work keep asking, "How is the house" I say, "It's GREAT!" and they say, "so, how do you like having a room mate?" It seems like they just can't wait to hear some dirt. For me to tell them that he puts the toilet paper roll on the wrong way, that he leaves his dirty socks on the couch, that he doesn't do laundry or dishes. And honestly, I can't say that. None of it. Okay, the toilet paper roll thing we handled immediately, but everything else isn't an issue. We both lived on our own for long enough before living together that there isn't that, "oh, if I leave this dish in the sink, it won't magically become clean and teleport itself back into the cupboard" shock that you get when you don't live with your mom any more.

The main level of the house is pretty much put together, the kitchen was first, then the bedroom and living/dining room. This past weekend I started on the sewing room. All the furniture has found its final resting place, so this week I'll be organizing and putting away fabric and yarn.

And here is the list of home improvements, and in the tentative order of importance.

• Tear down wall in bathroom. For some reason, the builder or a previous owner thought that having a hall coat closet would be better than having a bathroom big enough to brush your teeth in without hitting your elbow on the wall. So, goodbye closet. We don't need no stinkin' closet! The wall is coming down. We probably will end up actually fixing the bathroom last, maybe this winter, but the wall is coming down ASAP.


• Break up and remove cement driveway. There is pavement on two sides of the house, the driveway and the back yard has a good sized patio. The cement is graded TOWARD our foundation, which means any water runs INTO the foundation. The pressure of the cement pushing on the foundation is also making it bow in and crack. So the cement has to be broken up and removed.


• New roof.


• Then we can start thinking about remodeling the bathroom


• Finish the almost finished basement, which may include un-doing what was already done and starting over.
  

I also want to paint almost every room in the house. But, since the kitchen/dining room/living room will all be remodeled eventually, we're only worried about painting the bedroom.

Still no internet at home, and probably won't have it for a while. I'll take some pictures soon and will have to load them here at work.

I am still having a hard time grasping the OWNING part of this living situation. I can't grasp that I'm setting up my sewing room and it will stay that way for longer than a year. I still see For Sale and For Rent signs when I drive around and for a split second think, "oh, I'll have to remember to look that one up". And I'm still on the look out for empty boxes for moving. For two months I snatched up every empty box I could get my hands on. Now that our garage is full of empty and broken-down boxes, I can't quit the habit to acquire more. And the most surprising habit that has carried over from renting an upper unit apartment; when we drop something or walk around on our wood floors and they creek or I notice that I am walking with a heavy footed gait, I think, "the people downstairs will be pissed."